Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Spark Training: Public Evangelism

Yves Monnier

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you for a glorious Monday morning here at the Michigan Conference Camp Meeting.

Lord, I'm thankful to be here and I pray that my friends here are thankful as well to be present.

Lord, guide and direct our time together.

I pray that it will be insightful, helpful, and fruitful.

And Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit will be present to oversee this time together.

Pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

By the way, since we're just a few of us, let's not hesitate to interact.

And this is the good thing about being a smaller group.

Well, so what would you say is a good definition of evangelism?

Kathy does not have the corner on on good answers.

When you're sharing your testimony to the people, it is very easy.

Sometimes we don't do that as much as we should.

Emily, I think you were going to say something.

I think that everything you said is correct.

Here's how I see it and I think it complements to what you've already said.

Bottom line, evangelism is sharing the good news.

I would say the good news is Jesus loves you, all people, regardless of what they have done, their background, etc.

And I'm so thrilled that we are as a church in the business of sharing good news.

I opened the news online and all I see is bad news.

Fire that kills, at this time they've announced 79 people in London, A terrible fire in this 24-story apartment building.

We read about another car that rammed a group of people in London again.

I guess the trouble is mostly over there, not here.

And it can be depressing, all this bad news.

So aren't you glad that we as a church, we deal with good news.

We share, we give people hope in a world that seems to be so hopeless.

I'll tell you what, I believe evangelism makes a huge difference.

I'll share this quote with you in the notes that I will be sending you, but I find this in the church manual.

It's very insightful and I hope you listen carefully because it says a lot.

This is page 90 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church manual and it says here, the gospel commission of Jesus makes evangelism proclaiming the good news of the gospel, just like we just said, the primary function of the church.

So what is the primary function of the church?

Then the church manual continues and says, it is therefore also the primary function of the church board to serve as the chief committee of the local church.

So the primary function of the church board, since the primary function of the church is evangelism, the primary function of the board should be also evangelism.

Okay, so you'll be interested in knowing what the next part reads.

It says, when the board devotes its first interests and highest energies to every member evangelism, most church problems are alleviated or prevented.

You know, you go to church, not your church, obviously, but I go, you know, it is written we work with many, many, many, many churches in different parts of the world, and usually what I have noticed, I'll leave a little open, there's a nice breeze, but churches that have noticed, but churches that have problems, division, and conflict are usually churches that are not involved in evangelism.

But churches that are more involved in evangelism, involved in all that is related to evangelism, are churches that seem to have less trouble.

So, you know, if you want to have less trouble, you know what you need to do.

I want to clarify 5 big myths about evangelism.

Number 1, myth number 1, there's no 1 left to evangelize.

Believe me, there's some people who really think that.

That the church now is all about status quo, maintaining what we have, make sure that we have the best programs, etc.

But really, people have made up their minds, and that's it.

There's really not much, no, no, don't sit back there.

You can sit here first if you wanna sit in the back.

All you need to do is add your name and your email address and I'll send you my notes.

So that you don't have to worry about taking profuse notes.

So I think the words found in the gospel of Matthew are still ring true today.

And it's found in Matthew chapter 9, and I'll just read just a portion here.

Jesus has been going from village to village teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, just like what we are supposed to do.

That's the purpose of Seventh-day Adventist Christians.

We're not just, like I said, another program on television just to fill another slot in the morning, Sunday morning menu.

It says here, Jesus, verse 36, but when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

Let me tell you, when you look around, you go to the supermarket, you go to the gas station, you go to the restaurant, you drive on the road to work and you look at the other people driving to work as well.

You see people who are weary and tired and confused and something is clearly lacking.

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 2

Well, let's pray and then we'll get started here.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for another day.

There's, I don't think, no rain in the forecast and we've had plenty.

And we're never going to complain about rain because rain is always something that our land appreciates.

But now today, Lord, we thank you for the bright sunshine.

And we ask your blessing as we spend a few moments here looking at how to prepare the way for a successful evangelistic series.

So yesterday we kind of started the whole process.

So I want to make sure you're getting that and for you Angie, don't worry, we will take care of you as well.

So Even the people without emails are just as important.

So yesterday we kind of set the foundation.

Today we want to go a little bit further.

And I want to talk about 2 specific elements that are so crucial as you plan and prepare for an evangelistic series.

Because the preparation for successful evangelistic series doesn't take place a few weeks before, it takes place months maybe even years before you even started.

So I want to talk about the soil preparation, the element in the harvest cycle.

If you recall we talked about the harvest cycle.

Let's see if you remember from yesterday.

Number 1 in the harvest cycle would be what?

Soil preparation, the tilling, making sure the soil is ready.

Well you've got to take care of the seeds, you've got to take care of the seeds.

You've got to take care of what you've planted.

But very importantly, like we've experienced the last few days, God does His part.

He reigns upon the people that you're working with.

He reigns upon them, the Holy Spirit to guide and direct.

And after the harvest, Well, yeah, you start over, but not quite, almost.

You want to preserve what you've gained, and then of course you want to start all over again.

I want to start off here by reading Ministry of Healing, page 143.

I read it yesterday, but it is so crucial.

Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people.

And the next part really tells us about soil preparation.

He spent a lot of time just working the people.

The Savior mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

He showed his sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is all about soil preparation and then afterward, the seed sowing.

So before he got to the harvest, before he said, follow me, he did a lot of work beforehand.

So what are some of the things that we can do to prepare the community?

And I would say make the people aware that in this corner, on this street, in this neighborhood, is a caring Seventh-day Adventist Church.

What are some of the things that we can do?

I'll just give you a few suggestions, and the list is really infinite.

Stomp Smoking classes, vegetarian cooking schools, bread baking classes.

Don't worry, I'll send you all of these things in my notes.

They often do that in the Chattanooga area and a lot of people show up.

I think that would be a hit because people are living very stressful lives.

Reversing diabetes programs, depression recovery programs.

We've got a lot of good resources with Dr.

Nedley on its program, and we regularly have him on with John Bradshaw.

He interviews him talking about depression.

I'm going to give you something that you may not be aware of, but we know because of the responses we get.

When John has an offer at the end of the program, it kind of tells us how many people are watching.

Gives us an idea how the program is grabbing people.

And usually when Neil Nedley is on, and he talks about depression, the phone calls to It Is Written, just go through the roof.

People just wanting the resources, which tells us a lot of people are dealing with depression.

So this would really be a good 1 if you haven't done so, something related to depression, divorce recovery programs, parenting classes.

Or maybe related to computers, Just the basics on how to function with a laptop and online and internet, etc.

There's a lot of people who just don't have a clue, who are interested, who like to know more.

Health expos, health lectures, weight loss classes, and the list continues.

Another 1 that I haven't mentioned, but I've heard to be extremely successful are like gardening classes.

We've got, last Friday we had a canning class.

I'll tell you what, what you could do with gardening classes, most communities have what is called, what are called Master Gardeners.

And if you can get a, it doesn't have to be a Seventh-day Adventist, Master Gardener could be a person who just has a lot of expertise, but you doing it at the Adventist Church just is a fantastic bridge event.

We had a community, I'll come back to you Kathy, we had a community that did this in Missouri and so they rented the local, just a small local location there and lo and behold about a hundred people showed up.

Small advertising but it caught people's attention.

They wanted to improve the results of their gardens and they came and this was done by your friends the Seventh-day Adventists.

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 3

Let me mention something here before we pray.

We also have a door hanger that you can buy and distribute.

It's very similar to the Mega Mailer, but instead of using Uncle Sam or the federal...

But what it involves is your church members going from house to house to house to house and handing these on the door.

What we have discovered, our experience has been that it is going to be cheaper for sure by quite a significant margin, but the response rate is also less.

So you're not going to get quite the response that you do with the Mega Mailer.

The Mega Mailer is just an amazing thing.

I didn't tell you the whole story, I kind of hinted on it.

With the Mega Mailer, what happened is, I said, can you design something?

And so, you know, I'm gonna hold 1 up, give you 1 as well here since you were not here yesterday.

So anyway, I told them design something and they designed something and I didn't realize how big it would be and then of course it was a mistake.

So at first we called it the mistake mailer And then when we started getting results, we changed name to Miracle Mailer.

And then finally we decided, well, it doesn't sound very professional, so we settled on Mega Mailer.

So that's a little bit of the history about this mailer.

But this here is very similar to that, except this is using USPS, this is using your legs, and the response is a little bit better with this, but this 1 is a lot cheaper to also order and distribute.

But if your Pathfinder Club is looking for something to do on Sabbath afternoon and they can distribute a couple thousand of these, who knows?

Wanted to share that with you so you could see that as well Why I tell you why why I think I think it's it's a lot up here Something comes through the mail and it feels more official.

While something that comes like this, it's more local and possibly not as good.

This is why, by the way, let me mention this.

On the return address, it says Chattanooga, because that's our home office.

But what it says here, it's not something local.

And people have less fear if they don't feel this is a local entity.

But this here, it goes back to Chattanooga, so it's something distant.

I expect it to come back in the mail, and so people are less fretful about signing up.

I don't have any real answers except to say, I think people just feel it's more official if it comes by mail.

So the results are less effective, But if you can get your church members active, that's...

Let me tell you what, if you have walked 5 miles to put these on doors, I think you've got more buy-in.

So you know pros and cons on either side and it's just a matter of deciding which is best.

Personally I do like the door-to-door work just with a survey.

I found this to be extremely effective as well, but that's also the 1 that people are most scared of.

You think no one's going to respond, but you knock on doors, and God leads you to doors that have a person who is seriously, significantly searching for something better.

Because like I've said it over and over, like Ellen White says, there's this nameless longing people have.

I should pray and include the story in what they're going to keep on the recording here.

So Father in heaven, thank you for another day.

Bless us here as we talk about evangelism, public evangelism, how every church, every person in the church can be involved and successfully be part of public evangelism and lead people to you through this important means of evangelism.

And this happened in Boston, in Boston area.

So when you think of Boston, you don't think of Christianity at its pinnacle.

They're very secular, very materialistic, very, very cynical because of all the education there.

So we have a bunch of Bible workers, church members just like you, and they're doing a survey.

Knock on doors, and they happen to knock on the door of Linda.

Now Linda responded and she was thankful that they were at her door because she was at a crossroad in her life.

So let me back up and share with you about Linda's life.

Linda grew up in an extremely dysfunctional home.

And by the way, a lot of people grow up in very dysfunctional homes, unfortunately, even in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

He died when she was young, and even though 1 could say, what a blessing that he was out of the way because of his abuse, The mother was just a hair better, so not much improved.

As often it happens, a person from a dysfunctional home, when they're older, often end up marrying someone like the environment they come from.

You'd think that they would find the right person who would be so different from where they come from, but that's often not the case.

So she gets married, Linda gets married, and it's just a horrible situation as well.

And then so she, and he's very unhealthy thereafter, and she spends the rest of his life which wasn't too long taking care of him and then he passed away and and And so here's Linda looking back at her life.

Dysfunction, more dysfunction, more violence, and she's got nothing to really feel good about.

So she determines that there's no reason to live and I'm going to end my life.

So she goes to the hardware store, and this is by the way a 100% true story, she goes to the hardware store and buys the things that she believes she will need in order to end her life.

And she brings that stuff home, but doesn't act upon it.

She's still not sure, but she knows that her life is terrible.

And it is in that period, before she actually did this horrible act that someone knocks at the door.

They studied the Bible together and they connect, they build that relationship.

And back in October of 2016, Linda was baptized.

Actually, I probably have a picture of the baptism on my phone here.

She was in, this here is our quarterly magazine.

She was on the cover and the picture is just great.

She's out of the water, dripping, just dripping and her hands are up and she's got the biggest smile and that nameless longing, that inexpressible craving Ellen White talks about, she found it.

John Bradshaw

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 4

Father in heaven we're grateful to be here we thank you we praise you you've given us a life today and more than that you've given us a burden there are people around us going to hell and we want to see that reversed there are people around us who don't know you people who would go to heaven if only they had at their hands what we have in ours.

So bless us now, we're talking about a very important component of sharing the Word of God, and so we ask your blessing, and we pray in Jesus' name.

I'm not very interested in just evangelistic preaching.

I am very interested in powerful evangelistic preaching.

As a matter of fact, you're going to see some, I should have said this last night, you see a lot of principles that bleed over from the evangelistic meeting to the prayer meeting or Sabbath morning.

I think, honestly, I'll just be very candid, I think there is no excuse for bad preaching in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

If you can't, I know I'm gonna spend the entire time being distracted, but maybe there are some things to find up side roads.

I was a full-time public evangelist and then became a local church pastor, and then I realized, whoa, I can't preach the same 25 sermons over and over and over again.

And then I thought about my preaching calendar.

I never did put together a preaching calendar.

I think it's okay to do that, but I never did.

I kind of bit it off as I went and I thought to myself, what shall I preach?

I thought this was an idea that I borrowed from somebody else.

By the way, in preaching feel free to borrow.

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Spark Training: Public Evangelism

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 3

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